Tuesday, October 18, 2011

[Comic title: Elements; alt text: Of all the nations, the armies of the ununoctium-benders are probably the least intimidating. The xenon-benders come close, but their flickery signs are at least effective for propoganda. [sic]]

Before we begin, I'd like to point out that Randy somehow has still not fixed the really obvious spelling error in the alt text. This is weird. Usually by now he fixes it without comment. I'm left to conclude he just hasn't noticed it yet, somehow.

Moving on. Apparently Randy has been cut off from Megan's bountiful flow of milky sustenance lately, for surely his pandering has reached peaks not unlike the twin peaks of her breasts as she lies on her bed asleep he watches her, breathing heavily.

The pandering has taken over every part of his being--but no mortal is meant to be a creature of pure pandering. It has filled him with an untold self-hate--he liked children's fantasy cartoons, but he also liked science, and in terms of science this cartoon was dumb. It put forward unscientific theories, worse even than Creationism--it was denying the existence of the periodic table of elements! It still thought there were only four of them!

"Okay, think, Randall Munroe, creator of the webcomic XKCD," said he to himself, calming his fragile nerves. "You can still pander in this comic, you just have to come up with something else. How about, uh. Who invented the Periodic Table? Archimedes or some shit? Wikipedia, don't fail me now . . . ." And so, after being distracted by the articles on lactation and chloroform, he discovered Mendeleev. He had successfully accomplished a double-pander in the space of a single text-filled panel! THE DAY WAS SAVED!

Seriously, Randy? Let's start with how completelyunoriginal this joke is. Those are both from 2007, and the joke was already boring back then. With the exception of the double-pander, this isn't bringing anything new to the field. Why are you wasting our time with this? Do you seriously think that 'LOL THE CLASSIC FOUR ELEMENTS ARE WRONG BUT WE STILL USE THEM IN FANTASY EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE DUMB AND WRONG' is funny? Do you think pointing out that there is a difference between the classical elements and the periodic table is useful commentary, or anything apart from expected?

Often in XKCD, the concept is solid but it's ruined by some pretty awful execution. This is not the case here. The concept is pretty awful--the best the joke could aspire to is mediocrity in the hands of a gifted writer--and he basically gives it the worst possible execution, the perfect storm of bad comic-making. Which, well done, Randy, you got me to describe something you did as perfect.

Posted by
Rob

197 comments:

One thing i'd like to point out is he put a little more effort into drawing and coloring this one, especially for the cartoon character. I guess he's going for brand recognition, for enhanced pandering points?

This comic is pandering to redditors because this arrow on the guy's head looks like a downvote. He's using a reverse psychology, because seeing a downvote on their favorite comic will subconsciously urge a person to upvote it.

Did you seriously need three separate comments to describe your ingrained disgust for Discworld?

Oh hey Rob, you disgusting excuse for pancreatic failure, why didn't you mention the art? There's this striking dissimilarity between Aang and Mendeleev, being that MEndeleev's beard looks like South America, that hte back of his head is leaking or shriveling or what is it even trying to do, and that Mendeleev's wrist is a radio antenna.

anon, could you say why you dislike discworld? i've only ever heard fawning praise for it so this is interesting

maybe i'm an uncultured swine (likely) but the only real complaints i have with the series are the xkcdesque reference hemorrhaging and those Flintstones-with-magic jokes like c-mail or that stupid imp diary. oh and "the silence was so loud" type lines that are in every book. and the randomness i guess. and that ZANY chef who was allergic to a word but he's only in one book

If anyone is confused: No, it's not weird at all that Mendelev doesn't win this battle that is apparently happening.That's how xkcd works. It panders by making a self-ironical science comic that says "if you actually look at it like this, science is not so great", and then everybody laughs because it's fun when you can show that you don't take yourself and your ideals too seriously. Sure, you're a physicist/mathematician/whatever, but you're one of the cool ones.

Why does everyone think that the level of English is the most accurate indication of someone's intelligence?

On the Internet, making a grammar error makes you some sort of retard, and everyone likes to go round correcting every mistake they see, because they'll be seen a geniuses.

You think people who use text speak on facebook walls are idiots? If you actually had any non-idiot friends, you'd know that a lot of intelligent, educated people use text speak.

From my experience, those who type properly with caps and punctuation are mostly pseudointellectual drop outs, artistic liberals, etc.

On the other hand, being bad at math is totally cool: "I'm so terrible at math I can't even add lololol," when mathematical ability correlates directly with intelligence, and skipping it serves no intelligible purpose.

TL;DR: Following the exact pinpoint rules of English is not that important, you neckbeard

I think it's more that there are more people who are good at English than there are people who are good at math. So more people feel comfortable being smug and elitist about English than about math. Given how many people who speak English on the internet are speaking it as a second language, however, it's ridiculous the level of importance given to it as a standard of intelligence. Unfortunately, I was one of "those people" some time ago, and did not realize the error of my ways until I realized the girl I was berating for her poor grammar could still write in English vastly better than I could in her native language, which was German. So then I shut up about it. I still prefer to type in accurate English most of the time just because I like the way it looks, but I no longer feel the urge to correct every grammar mistake on the internet ever.

I love how you think you can deduce from my one sentence my entire opinion on text speak. I don't care if you use shorthands and whatnot, but using "there" instead of "their," or "it's" instead of "its" is not text speak.

And calling someone an idiot doesn't always mean his or her IQ is below 50; it's just sort of a generic insult for someone who screws up. Welcome to post-nineteenth century America.

I'm sorry for not proofreading my comment before I posted it. The reason I made that mistake was that I type fairly quickly and said the word "its" in my head. When I think the sound "its", maybe 80% of the time, the correct way to write it is "it's". It's transcribing the sound, not the way the word looks.

This is where the homonym category of grammatical errors comes from; people use the way the word sounds in their head to write it down. And then they move on to the next word, there's not an element of choice at play, they aren't puzzling over to/too or your/you're. A simple unconscious choice.

I think typing speed is also a factor, when I'm not really concentrating, I make spelling errors, but these are called typos and forgiveable. I don't see why a grammatical error can't be called a typo as well.

And obviously I'd like to agree with 11:14 about assuming people who make a minor error are complete idiots. As in, not agreeing with the hypothesis.

R: Thank you for that, I was waiting for an opportunity to go on an angry rant here. Here it goes.

Now, let me start off by saying that I do not actually hate Discworld. Or at least, I don't hate it to not have read like twenty books. Overall they're fun enough, or at least not-boring enough. But they do have some pretty glaring flaws.

I'm really not sure how to phrase my biggest gripe with the books. I guess one way of putting it is that Terry Pratchett has discovered a text version of a laugh track. There are just some lines, at least a handful in each book, that just kinda wallop you over the head, going "THIS IS FUNNY. LAUGH DAMMIT." But the thing is, they're just utterly devoid of humor. They have the structure of a joke, sure, but there's nothing funny about them. It's kinda jarring and often distracts from what would otherwise be an enjoyable read. It doesn't help that he considers feminism, for instance, to be a punchline in and of itself. Not in the "You wanna hear a joke?" "OK" "Women's rights!"-sense, that would at least get some guiltlaughs from me. It's more of a "Oh my God this woman can kick your ass isn't that both hilarious and awesome at the same time?"

That brings me to another thing I don't like. His female characters. Nearly all of his remotely sympathetic female characters (probably not counting Nanny Ogg, but definitely counting Granny Weatherwax) is a blatant masturbatory fantasy. You think I'm exaggerating, but no, in one of his early stories he describes a female character (it doesn't matter what her name is, she's interchangeable with all his other female characters) with what amounts to "she's totally hot and is a ninja or something and kicks ass and oh my God I have such a boner right now you have no idea". But because his fantasy women are "empowered" and "non-traditional" he gets hailed as a feminist writer. Bullshit. He's about as much of a feminist as the average superhero comics writer.

As to your complaints, there do seem to be a lot of books that only exist so Pratchett can cram in a bunch of references (Soul Music, Moving Pictures), but I wouldn't say it's endemic of the entire series. Or maybe most of the references just go over my head, uncultured heathen that I am. The "Flintstones" thing, yeah, I can see that, it is kinda irritating to see him come up with a semi-interesting idea (the Clacks) and then use it as a vehicle to make lame technology jokes. Oh, and God yes, I the "loud silence thing" is annoying. It seems like every other book has a snowclone off of "It was anti-sound. Not silence, that is just absence of sound. But on the Discworld, everything has a true opposite. Silence is zero sound, this is negative sound." Yes, we get it, Terry, clever little thing you did there, I got it when you did it twenty books ago. Now shut the fuck up about it. I'm not sure what you mean by RANDOM but I think I might have covered it in my first complaint. I don't know what your last thing is about, maybe I didn't read that book.

So uh, in conclusion, Discworld is mildly enjoyable but Terry Pratchett can be amazingly unfunny at times and doesn't really deserve the praise nerds heap on him! That's...that's about it. Bye now.

in making money there is a chef called aimsbury who is allergic to the word garlic. it was terrible

the thing with the jokes is i've never really found them funny and didn't think they were meant to be. they're amusing and usually sort of clever but i usually only laugh once or twice each book. it's not why i read them

about the sexism, i didn't really notice it. although in thud! there are some awkward scenes involving angua, a vampire and a stripper that really stuck out. there's a sitcom line about them wrestling in mud and the vampire says something like "we could charge to watch."

i disagree with you about all of his good female characters being masturbation fantasies. self-inserts maybe. then again i've only read the first two witch books so maybe it gets worse

I copy all my witty rants and ripostes and paste them at will. It's a time-saving measure and allows me to impart a point concisely and well even when I'm not at my peak internet-arguing skill, or when I have, say, a lysine deficiency, or swine flu.

Well, Rob, there are some mediocre rants among the good ones, but when they spread my worldview I hardly care of their quality. Let me catalogue my rants by title, and, in doing so, frame my ideology:

Casey Anthony Guilty ProofList of Ghetto NamesOn Autist Self-Identification and 'Pride'On Female Subculture AdherenceOn CamwhoresTrolling KlansmenOn the Continuum FallacyRaces as SubspeciesOn WeeaboosGrammar RantOn that Poor People SimulatorOn the Occupy Wall St. ProtestsOn the G Factor and the Genetic Basis of IntelligenceOn Doomsday FetishizingOn Nature FetishizingThe Necessity of Change in Online CommunitiesOn WelfareReagan and the TalibanOn the London RiotsMuslims and the Struggle for Global JihadIsrael and the 'Chosen People' Liberalism as a Substitute for ReligionOn XKCD Eastern GermanyThe Uniqueness of AmericansOn the Hypocrisy of Islamic ThoughtMrs. Obama's Anti-Americanism

All of these being .txt's, of course. If anyone wants me to paste any of them, ask and you shall receive.

But don't ask for the racist ones, I've got way too much to organize in one post. If you want to, I will, but you've been warned.

Autistic/Aspergers pride isn't that weird of a concept, really. Just because someone has a disability doesn't mean they should be a wallowing pile of self-hatred. What's weird is people who get angry when you call it a disability and insist that they're better than normal people and the only reason it gets labeled as a disability is that normal people don't understaaaaaaaaand how their brains work. It'd be bad enough if they just refused to acknowledge that yes, being unable to read social cues is a problem (it's society's fault for inventing them, obviously), but some of them go farther than that. They assume that everyone with autism is some kind of super-genius and that they're better than normal humans. For a disorder that tends to make one obsessive and nit-picky over minor things you'd think they would be offended by the popular idea that everyone with autism is the Rainman, but no, they embrace it. It'd be like if blind people insisted that everyone who was blind was Daredevil, and that it's sighted people who suck for not having super-cool radar powers and ninja skills. It's baffling.

Opinions are a form of truth for the individual. You can't say that one person's opinion is more valid than the other, or that one person's opinion is better than the other. It's like comparing apples and oranges. One can be convinced that apples are the best thing in the world, while the other can be convinced that oranges are better than apples, and both are not wrong. It's a pragmatic form of truth, where each individual prefers/believes what fits in with their values.

As for you not liking XKCD, alright, give me a comic that you do like and justify it just like you justify why XKCD is so horrible. Justify why all jokes are not just as "stupid" and "unoriginal" as XKCD is. Do it, pl0x, and keep the disagreements civilized.

There were a lot of pointless comments above [like usual], so I didn't check, but did anyone mention the fact that Randall actually used too few panels? That whole "swoosh" thing being part of the dialogue makes very little sense.

ROBERT! I ,you incomprehensible douche bag, am here to demand that this bullshit not go on any further. Your points are invalid and your ideas are lamer then the very comic that you condemn. But if the endless stream of nonsense must continue then let it be so that you bring your A GAME! for if you give a half assed review or slip up in the slightest then YOU, ROBERT, are the one who is washed out and YOU!, ROBERT, will be the subject of the very ridicule that you so love to perpetuate, and if this is so then be prepared to defend yourself or be forced to the annals of internet obscurity for the REMAINDER OF YOUR PITIFUL EXISTENCE!

"who was Rob" they will ask

"oh robert" the voices will murmer from the depths of the internet "he was that over blown jackass who thought he would earn the respect of people by pissing on one mans hard work, lets not speak of him"

>”Recently using genetic and biochemical methods researchers have shown domestic dogs to be virtually identical . . . to other members of the genus . . . Results using mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) data . . . reveal startling similarities among canids . . . Greater mtDNA differences appeared within the single breeds of Doberman Pinscher or poodle than between dogs and wolves . . . to keep things in perspective, it should be pointed out that there is less mtDNA difference between dogs, wolves, and coyotes, than there is between ethnic groups of human beings.” (pp. 32-33)

Anyway "race is a social construct" comments usually revolve around two fallacies:

1) Continuum fallacy ('continuums preclude sub-division, on account of them being continuous' - This is false. You may as well do away with all taxonomic sub-division if you believe that).

2) Within-between fallacy ('humans have more variation within races than between them' - This is based on a misunderstanding of how the Fixation index ((FST)) works).

Good recent study done on the matter:

>The term race is a traditional synonym for subspecies, however it is frequently asserted that Homo sapiens is monotypic and that what are termed races are nothing more than biological illusions. In this manuscript a case is made for the hypothesis that H. sapiens is polytypic, and in this way is no different from other species exhibiting similar levels of genetic and morphological diversity. First it is demonstrated that the four major definitions of race/subspecies can be shown to be synonymous within the context of the framework of race as a correlation structure of traits. Next the issue of taxonomic classification is considered where it is demonstrated that H. sapiens possesses high levels morphological diversity, genetic heterozygosity and differentiation (FST) compared to many species that are acknowledged to be polytypic with respect to subspecies. Racial variation is then evaluated in light of the phylogenetic species concept, where it is suggested that the least inclusive monophyletic units exist below the level of species within H. sapiens indicating the existence of a number of potential human phylogenetic species; and the biological species concept, where it is determined that racial variation is too small to represent differentiation at the level of biological species. Finally the implications of this are discussed in the context of anthropology where an accurate picture of the sequence and timing of events during the evolution of human taxa are required for a complete picture of human evolution, and medicine, where a greater appreciation of the role played by human taxonomic differences in disease susceptibility and treatment responsiveness will save lives in the future.

Source: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2009.07.046

---

Not very entertaining, eh? Hence my reluctance to recommend it, though true it may be.

Liberals believe in stupid things (like 100% racial equality) which are unsupported and even directly contradicted by empirical evidence.

Liberals believe these things for no other reason than the positive emotions associated with such a belief. Just like a fear of death makes Christians believe in eternal life, so does the fear of inequality and being labelled 'racist' (heretic) makes Liberals believe in racial egalitarianism.

Liberals are hostile towards nonbelievers. Just like Muslims will punish you for insulting the prophet Muhammad, Liberals imprison people for "hate speech" if they dare to criticize or express skepticism towards Liberal dogma.

There's no way around the fact that Liberalism is just a modern religion. Religion is not dying off, people are simply migrating to new religions. Just like the change from polytheism to monotheism thousands of years ago.

Why does everyone think that the level of English is the most accurate indication of someone's intelligence?

On the Internet, making a grammar error makes you some sort of retard, and everyone likes to go round correcting every mistake they see, because they'll be seen a geniuses.

You think people who use text speak on facebook walls are idiots? If you actually had any non-idiot friends, you'd know that a lot of intelligent, educated people use text speak.

From my experience, those who type properly with caps and punctuation are mostly pseudointellectual drop outs, artistic liberals, etc.

On the other hand, being bad at math is totally cool: "I'm so terrible at math I can't even add lololol," when mathematical ability correlates directly with intelligence, and skipping it serves no intelligible purpose.

Ok so I just skimmed the race thing but I gather you think ethnicity is a genetically meaningful way to classify people? Aside from the fact that whether it is or not has little bearing on any of the arguments made on either side of racist debates, how do you account for the fact that the features by which most people generally identify most races are, while perhaps more physically obvious than most features, are as few and as specific as countless other genetic features? Nobody would attempt to argue that there's a point to classifying humans by hair colour, leg hairiness, or dick size.

Also I like how you think the idea that some people get overly passionate about their ideals is sufficient to conclude that the entire position is delusional and dogmatic. Because, you know, it's not like any idea anyone's ever had hasn't had overly fervent proponents.

Well, we're not categorizing people by skin color at all, though, but by a number of traits, even in the most cursory analysis. Nobody would consider an albino Kenyan white, nor would they consider a sunburnt Norwegian Native American. A basic glance could tell you race reliably, say, 80% of the time; but you would have to look at genetics, haplogroups, etc. to reliably pinpoint derivation and ancestry. Peppercorn hair and burnished skin could suggest Bantoid ancestry, but you need genetic analysis to be sure, especially in mixed ethnicities such as the Brazilians, the Keralans, and the Lemba.

You can argue that mixing precludes accurate racial classification, but that's the continuum fallacy, and if you continue with that line of reasoning you'd have to throw all taxonomy out the window, which no scientist is doing.

It is so with all subspecies, even those that branched of even more recently than the major human populations; while we split off between 160 and 50 thousand years ago, a species of Californian snake branched off ten thousand years ago into lowland and highland subspecies; though mixing can and sometimes does occur, they share enough key genetic and behavioral differences to be marked distinct.

Now, race itself is a bit of a misnomer, but all taxonomy is like this; at what point do subspecies begin and end in a continuum? But when anthropologists, given a skeleton, can deduce origin (i.e. race) from morphological differences alone, the groups are distinct enough to merit a subspecie label.

Ok I know there's more than just melanin involved but usually only a few more things. And uh, ok I think I remember what haplogroups are, and it's essentially the closest meaningful way of classifying humans to ethnicity, but the overlap haplogroups have with commonly recognized ethnic groups is minimal. That alone suggests that this is actually an incredibly stupid argument.As if you really being too boring for this to be worth it wasn't already an indication that i should stop.

Casey Anthony: She lied at least 3 times to the jury, changed her story entirely, made up a fake babysitter, then accused her parents of raping her and drowning Caylee. Plus, the car that only she had ever used was proven to have contained a dead, decomposing body. She actually had the gall to hold up the search for her child and attempt to end it at least 7 times. She went out partying with her boyfriend only 4 days after her kid went missing. Those are not the actions of someone innocent, ne c'est pas?

Female Subculture Adherence: When girls like traditional mens' things, they are doing it not because they really enjoy it; girls cannot like these things like us. What they like is the subculture they enter, and how in these subcultures they can be precious and unique and the center of their own little clique. That's why you see girls into things like heavy metal, or, now that it is fashionable, nerdy things, but you will never see a girl being a fan of things that do not have a whole subculture associated, like Krautrock or avant-garde music. They choose their tastes like choosing clothing, it justs matter what will fit their jib better; they cannot, shallow as they are, really appreciate things for what they are.

Camwhores:Let me start by saying that I have never seen more narcissistic losers in my life than camwhores. Do they have nothing more productive to do than spending their daddy's money to buy clothes and taking photos of themselves every day of their life? They are absolutely pathetic, I mean, how sad would they have to be to set up a tripod in a forest or a supermarket and laugh and pose like it's totally spontaneous.They are also completely deluded. They'll never be real models - they're chubby, or their teeth are too large, or they have masculinely broad feet, their face looks autistic, their legs are disproportionately fat, or they have an awful taste in fashion. Their fashion styles are archaic, 2006, 2007; they're boring and unoriginal.Finally, every lonely beta spamms their pictures on the web. Everyone has to endure 3000+ photos of them looking like attention-starved whores. If they don't stop doing this, consequences will never be the same.

>Our results unequivocally confirm that a substantial proportion of individual differences in human intelligence is due to genetic variation, and are consistent with many genes of small effects underlying the additive genetic influences on intelligence.

>We estimate that 40% of the variation in crystallized-type intelligence and 51% of the variation in fluid-type intelligence between individuals is accounted for by linkage disequilibrium between genotyped common SNP markers and unknown causal variants.

>Genetic influences on brain morphology and IQ are well studied. A variety of sophisticated brain-mapping approaches relating genetic influences on brain structure and intelligence establishes a regional distribution for this relationship that is consistent with behavioral studies. We highlight those studies that illustrate the complex cortical patterns associated with measures of cognitive ability. A measure of cognitive ability, known as g, has been shown highly heritable across many studies. We argue that these genetic links are partly mediated by brain structure that is likewise under strong genetic control.

>This meta-analysis of former studies records intelligence to have a heritability of 0.85 in adulthood, which is very significant. "These findings are consistent with those reported for the traits of other species and for many human physical traits, suggesting that they may represent a general biological phenomenon.

Americans:Why do Americans use the Imperial system? Why do we use AM and PM? Why do we write dates differently? Why do we tip waiters and delivery men? Why do we spell words differently? Why are we so audible and sarcastic? Why are we so religious? Why do we shun elitists and class society? It is because our culture is unique. In our sources, developments, and achievements, we are matched by no other race, no other culture, on the Earth. And it is as god wills it.

"In my own life in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much," she said. "See, that's why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service, "...Michelle Obama

No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she doesn't perform any official duties. But this hasn't deterred her from hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim and to satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession.

Just think, Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the salary for her personal secretary from her husband's salary.

Total Personal Staff members for other first ladies paid by taxpayers:

How things have changed! If you're one of the tens of millions of Americans facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers,prepare to scream and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of Ms Michelle are the same as members of the national security and defense departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by YOU, John Q. Public:

Michele Obama 's personal staff:

One.. $172,200 - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)Two.. $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)Three.. $113,000 - Rogers , Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and White House Social Secretary for Mrs. Obama )Four.. $102,000 - Johnston , Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the First Lady)Five.. $100,000 - Winter, Melissa (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)Six.. $90,000 Medina , David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)Seven.. $84,000 - Lilyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady)Eight.. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady)Nine.. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Project for the First Lady)Ten.. $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)Eleven.. $64,000 - Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)Twelve.. $62,000 - Goodman , Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events Coordinator For The First Lady)Thirteen.. $60,000 Fitz , Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for the First Lady)Fourteen.. $57,500 - Lewis , Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First Lady)Fifteen... $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary To The First Lady)Sixteen.. $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and Traveling Aide To The First Lady)Seventeen.. $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence For The First Lady)Eighteen.. $43,000 - Tubman , Samanth a (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)Nineteen.. $40,000 - Boswell , Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)Twenty.. $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary)Twenty-One.. $35,000 - Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)Twenty-Two.. $35,000 - Jackson , Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady)

Why does everyone think that the level of English is the most accurate indication of someone's intelligence?

On the Internet, making a grammar error makes you some sort of retard, and everyone likes to go round correcting every mistake they see, because they'll be seen a geniuses.

You think people who use text speak on facebook walls are idiots? If you actually had any non-idiot friends, you'd know that a lot of intelligent, educated people use text speak.

From my experience, those who type properly with caps and punctuation are mostly pseudointellectual drop outs, artistic liberals, etc.

On the other hand, being bad at math is totally cool: "I'm so terrible at math I can't even add lololol," when mathematical ability correlates directly with intelligence, and skipping it serves no intelligible purpose.

When did people start accepting rants as legitimate discourse instead of what they are, which is essentially the overflow of emotional rhetoric unmediated by the need to, for example, appear reasonable or coherent?

I mean, I realize that no one should ever take anything said in this sort of milieu with even the barest degree of seriousness, but it's really just appalling how "rant" has gone from "I couldn't control myself" to "I desperately search for opportunities to vent my indignation"

Why does everyone think that the level of English is the most accurate indication of someone's intelligence?

On the Internet, making a grammar error makes you some sort of retard, and everyone likes to go round correcting every mistake they see, because they'll be seen a geniuses.

You think people who use text speak on facebook walls are idiots? If you actually had any non-idiot friends, you'd know that a lot of intelligent, educated people use text speak.

From my experience, those who type properly with caps and punctuation are mostly pseudointellectual drop outs, artistic liberals, etc.

On the other hand, being bad at math is totally cool: "I'm so terrible at math I can't even add lololol," when mathematical ability correlates directly with intelligence, and skipping it serves no intelligible purpose.

This is a great comment thread. I haven't even finished reading it, but I like where it's going. The review was good too.

@Anon 2:21 (from the top of the thread)There is such a thing as a red panda, you know.

I like Ruiqi Mao, and hope he stays. Unfortunately I suspect he is just a samefag/sockpuppet of Rob. Just look at the timestamps on their posts. They were made mere minutes apart from each other. When I go samefagging, I usually leave at least a 15 minute gap between posts

The alternate theory is that he's a friend of Rob, and they were in the same room when they posted. I really want this to be true. If someone as repulsive as Rob can have friends, then it gives me hope for myself.

What's so bad about the evolution in COMMUNITY_NAME's phenotype? If two genetically viable internet populations want to intermix, why shouldn't they? Are you a racist? Change is inherent to all organized communities; attempting to prevent it or to keep it frozen at a single point in time (usually the time when the speaker first joined said network) is firstly bound to fail and secondly a symptom of a deep-set fear of the unknown. Perhaps it would serve you well to visit a psychiatrist, instead of whining about foreign modes invading "your" COMMUNITY_NAME on the internet?

The world never stays the same, not for one year to the next, not even from one minute to the next; why should COMMUNITY_NAME be different? If we expanded to get more people, to become more international, it is no bad thing but rather an expression of diveristy (the healthy kind) and wealth. Lest we stagnated at a handful of members and thus were abandoned, becoming one of many websites which failed to achieve their full potential.

Doomsday: A tablet from ancient Assyria, daring from about 2800 B.C. has been found that states: "Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common." People have been hailing the end of the world since time immemorial. Is this a rational response? Is the world ending, so commonly yet so slowly? Does doomsday approach? Of course not. But humans tend to recall their youth with past, and to dislike change; so we recall that which has already passed with rose-tinted glasses, and regard any modification with fear and scorn. Humans are by nature pessimistic, and when we see fashions and ideas changing we feel left behind and sad. So we make up theories as to the ending world, and the fall of society, and impeding doom, to lend us and our generation legitimacy in our refusal to change.

It's folly, of course, yet people persist in it. Such is human nature.

Why does everyone think that the level of English is the most accurate indication of someone's intelligence?

On the Internet, making a grammar error makes you some sort of retard, and everyone likes to go round correcting every mistake they see, because they'll be seen a geniuses.

You think people who use text speak on facebook walls are idiots? If you actually had any non-idiot friends, you'd know that a lot of intelligent, educated people use text speak.

From my experience, those who type properly with caps and punctuation are mostly pseudointellectual drop outs, artistic liberals, etc.

On the other hand, being bad at math is totally cool: "I'm so terrible at math I can't even add lololol," when mathematical ability correlates directly with intelligence, and skipping it serves no intelligible purpose.

Where does your 'sense' help you when your youth follow American modes, and the whole world latches to the teat of our culture? Europe is dying, the old morals are dying, and a new world order arises. America's at the forefront of this new style, and it is as god wills it.

Why does everyone think that the level of English is the most accurate indication of someone's intelligence?

On the Internet, making a grammar error makes you some sort of retard, and everyone likes to go round correcting every mistake they see, because they'll be seen a geniuses.

You think people who use text speak on facebook walls are idiots? If you actually had any non-idiot friends, you'd know that a lot of intelligent, educated people use text speak.

From my experience, those who type properly with caps and punctuation are mostly pseudointellectual drop outs, artistic liberals, etc.

On the other hand, being bad at math is totally cool: "I'm so terrible at math I can't even add lololol," when mathematical ability correlates directly with intelligence, and skipping it serves no intelligible purpose.

The dabbling writer who imagines his little passages of uninteresting thoughts are good enough to be reused. I have not encountered this type of person before. Is the type even worse than he hack writer who self-publishes because he figures his manuscripts are only being rejected on the basis that publishers can't comprehend his genius?

@9:16 You can't entrap me with your trick question. We all know there's nobody worse than the smug wanker who goes around belittling other people's hubris under the conviction that he has no blind spots in his own vanity.

"your opinions have been wrong since you started having them" is the kind of shitty talking that the owner of this blog uses when he doesn't know what to say, and pretend it's an argument. Just read back a couple of the "discussions" he has in previous posts and you'll see how it works.

So this blog was made to discuss how much people get annoyed at a web comic? This doesn't seem very progressive...If you don't like it, then why go to the bother of looking up xkcd to begin with? Unless this is all one huge joke that I'm missing out on?

"3. (of taxation or a tax) Increasing as a proportion of the sum taxed as that sum increases - steeply progressive income taxes"

This might be used to describe Rob (in that his girth increases as a proportion of the increasingly taxing effort it takes for him to use the keyboard with his sausage-like fingers), but not the blog itself, I think.

"4. (of a card game or dance) Involving a series of sections for which participants successively change place or relative position"

Some samefags show up and start having arguments with themselves in the comments, so I guess this works.

"5. Engaging in or constituting forward motion"

In the sense that it continues to move forward with comments even when nobody has anything to say, I guess this is true.

517 You seem to be semi-reasonable about it so I'll try to give you an actual answer before leaving you to the trolls:

Basically, some time back in 2008, Carl, the guy who started the blog, started to not find XKCD as funny as he once did. In most cases, this wouldn't have been an issue, people's tastes change all the time. But Carl noticed something weird: no one he knew seemed to grasp the idea that he didn't like XKCD. It's not just that he couldn't find anyone who agreed with him, he couldn't find anyone who didn't consider disliking XKCD some completely alien concept. So he Googled "XKCD sucks", figuring that on the Internet there's always someone who dislikes something, and he could maybe find some like-minded people. So he started this blog, to make see if he wasn't crazy, and there were other people out there who didn't consider XKCD completely and utterly genius.

That's how most of us got here: we used to like XKCD, we got tired of it, but then we found out that pretty much wasn't allowed. You stop liking XKCD, you start noticing how much people try to shoehorn the comic into every forum thread they can, no matter how little it has to do with the conversation. You start noticing how every friggin day, people are posting XKCD comics on their blogs or their facebooks or just on forums and going "omg so true get out of my head randall". You start getting people going, "I KNOW you don't like XKCD but surely even YOU like this one" every single comic.

And worse than that, people seem to get offended that you don't like it. You can't give it the slightest criticism without someone going "WELL WHY DON'T YOU JUST NOT READ IT, HUH?" You start getting told you must not be a real nerd/geek/whatever if you don't like XKCD. You start getting people telling you, without the slightest hint of irony, that it's all subjective and just because YOU don't like it doesn't make it bad. It gets to the point where you need SOMEWHERE where people are not shoving XKCD in your face and demanding you like it. So you wind up here.

And that's the situation. Or at least, it was. I'm not sure how many people there still are for whom the above still holds, but even Carl admits that XKCD isn't as popular as it once was, and there are in fact places (not just here) where people aren't obsessively linking it and you're allowed to not like it. That's why he quit: he felt the blog has fulfilled its purpose, at least for him. It stuck around essentially because a community had kinda formed that people didn't want to go away, and occasionally it's bad enough that Rob feels the need to write about it.

Aaaaand that's about it. Sorry if I got a little too dramatic there, I try to avoid that. If you're not satisfied with my answer, try scrolling up to the thing on the side called "Rob's Rants", and reading rant number one. Rob is a better writer than I am, but also more of an asshole. His answer might be more satisfying. As for "That doesn't seem very progressive...", if I'm interpreting that correctly (although 6:49 has a point, no one uses it the way you seem to be), Read rant number four. It puts it way better than I could have, so I didn't even bother addressing that one.

Why does everyone think that the level of butthurt is the most accurate indication of someone's foolishness?

On the Internet, getting emotional makes you some sort of retard, and everyone likes to go round acting all edgy, because they'll be seen a tough.

You think people who use are passionate about issues are idiots? If you actually had any non-idiot friends, you'd know that a lot of intelligent, educated people are passionate about things.

From my experience, those who try to play it cool are mostly insecure autists, lonely, low self-esteem putzes, etc.

On the other hand, lacking any empathy is totally cool: "I'm so terrible at empathizing I can only get joy out of schadenfreude lololol," when empathy correlates directly with social success, and lacking empathy serves no intelligible purpose.

On the other hand, being bad at roleplaying totally cool: "I'm so terrible at roleplaying I can't even come up with a backstory lololol," when roleplaying ability correlates directly with geekiness, and skipping it serves no intelligible purpose.

Why does everyone think that the level of membership in the KKK is the most accurate indication of someone's racism?

On the Internet, being a KKK member makes you some sort of racist, and everyone likes to go round upbraiding every KKK member they see, because they'll be seen a enlightened progressives.

You think people who use dress up in costumes that obscure one's race are racists? If you actually had any KKK friends, you'd know that a lot of tolerant, merciful people are part of the KKK.

From my experience, those who act all self-righteous about racism are mostly mighty whitey types, whiny liberals, etc.

On the other hand, being anti-Nazi is totally cool: "I'm so against Nazis I believe in the Holocaust lololol," when Nazi-hating correlates directly with anti-Aryanism, and Holocaust-acknowledging serves the Jewish overlords.

Why does everyone think that the level of over 9000 is the most accurate indication of being able to break the scouter?

In DragonBall universe, not knowing the power level makes you some sort of Nappa, and everyone likes to go round correcting every mistake they see, because they'll be seen as Vegeta.

You think people who use powerlevels are idiots? If you actually had any non-idiot friends, you'd know that a lot of intelligent, educated people use scouters.

From my experience, those who don't use the scouter are mostly supersaiyans, Master Roshi, etc.

On the other hand, being bad at piccolo is totally cool: "I'm so terrible at piccolo I can't even play it," when piccolo-playing ability correlates directly with being green, and skipping it serves no intelligible purpose.

Why does everyone think that the level of fatness is the most accurate indication of Rob's intelligence?

On the Internet, being fat makes you some sort of retard, and everyone likes to go round mocking every 400-pound person named Rob that they see, because they'll be seen a geniuses.

You think people who eat twenty cheeseburgers a day are idiots? If you actually had any non-twiglike friends, you'd know that a lot of intelligent, educated people eat out all day, every day.

From my experience, those who eat well are mostly pseudointellectual drop outs, artistic liberals, etc.

On the other hand, being bad at sports is totally cool: "I'm so terrible at sports I can't even catch a ball lololol," when athletic ability correlates directly with sexiness, and skipping it serves no intelligible purpose.

Now for a personal rant of my own, since I have a lab report due tomorrow:

Goddamn it, Microsoft. How do you go from functional - though shitty - graphing capabilities in Microsoft Excel, to such fucking retarded, ass-rapingly bad software? I do the same Goddamn thing as I did last time to make a graph, but now I don't have the same options to edit these motherfucking bullshit axes. The help file is a joke. Go fuck yourself, dumbasses. Have you ever heard of not 'fixing' something that isn't broken? Considering how little work I have less to do - this would take thirty fucking minutes to make all these Goddamn graphs, were it not for your piece of shit software jerking me around for an hour - this is mindnumbingly frustrating.

Windows Media Player 9 was just perfect, but then they had to "upgrade" it and now it's horrible. Some idiot actually thought it would be a better idea to not allow me to manually add a song to my media library and instead have only the option of adding an entire folder at a time. On top of that, it's impossible to find your way around. And of course, there's no easy way to dump it and install an older version. Seriously, Microsoft? Go to hell.

I understand your story about the creation of the blog and the community of users. Some comments are quite funny and yes, sometimes xkcd is quite poor. But some of the words in this blog are pure anger and bitterness and awfully aggressive, and i cannot understand why do you support that.

See how here Rob makes up a stupid story (which includes creepy personal references) on Randall Munroe's thinking process to create a xkcd strip, and then he goes "Seriously, Randy?" before starting to explain why the joke is bad. The same is done very often. And yet Rob has criticized R. Munroe, on this very blog, for using "straw man arguments". Please, at least make some effort.

Have you seen the constant personal attacks? People in this blog say that it is FUNNY that RM's wife has cancer, and Rob agrees with that - I wonder if you agree as well? Did you read Rob (that's his whole name as far as I know) accusing R. Munroe of rape on this blog?

I guess you're free of saying whatever you want (nobody can hold you accountable for anything... this is the internet) but unless it is jealousy, as some have suggested, I don't understand why there is so much hate.

You know... totally unrelated with this blog, but since you brought it up: Mac did the same with the Final Cut Pro editing software suite, or so I've heard. Apparently the new version is not actually "Pro" and has lots of previously available features missing.

"Did you read Rob (that's his whole name as far as far as I know) accusing R. Munroe of rape on this blog?"

This parenthetical statement is mesmerizing in its bizarreness. Why would you think that's his whole name? Why do you bring it up here, rather than any of the previous three times you mentioned Rob's name in this post? What does it have to do with anything?

you people are all missing the joke here, it's quite funny actually. what's going on is that randall is trying to tell the reader that not only does he believe that bending is real, but also that cartoons interact with the real world, he's crying out for us all to get him admitted in a mental hospital where he can finally get some help.

that would imply there have been twelve good XKCD comics, ever. and that I am sufficiently interested in your opinion on my opinion to go back through my old posts and find the ones where I said I liked a comic. do you have any idea how boring reading your own old blog posts is?

I know it will shatter the mental picture you've come up with for me, but you will probably have a hard time finding a more generally apathetic and unconcerned person than me. I am actually quite well known for it

'Why are you wasting our time with this?'Whoah seriously dude. No one is forcing you to read the comics. If you think they are that bad and a waste of time, simple answer is don't read them. And then don't go on to write a huge blog about how they are a waste of time and you hate them. That's just wasting more of your time. You might find your blood pressure drops a fair bit if you avoid the things that cause you stress. The comics are not even that bad...

my favorite part about this blog is the people who don't understand what rhetorical devices are and assume that every single word I have ever written is intended to be taken in its most literal and direct sense

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

Frequently Asked Questions

Divided into two convenient categories, based on whether you think this website

Rob's Rants

When he's not flipping a shit over prescriptivist and descriptivist uses of language, xkcdsucks' very own Rob likes writing long blocks of text about specific subjects. Here are some of his excellent refutations of common responses to this site. Think of them as a sort of in-depth FAQ, for people inclined to disagree with this site.